Calendar
Speaker: John Perry
To Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85175860127?pwd=bfZRQOSMuhX9Pfm4qhPMOZMrmE9Ohm.1
Latin America Resists Trump � Deportations, Drugs, and Economic Waarfare
The main difference between Donald Trump and his predecessors is that the current CEO of the empire better exposes naked imperialism. With an ever more aggressive and virulent projection of hegemony, the Yankees view problems such as migration and drug trafficking as simply coming from the south, ignoring some of the underlying made-in-the-USA causes.
To reverse that narrative, our speaker will provide a view from the south and how resistance is building in Latin America and the Caribbean. Nicaragua-based John Perry is a naturalized citizen and a supporter of the Sandinista Revolution. He is a journalist whose work has appeared in the London Review of Books, Grayzone, FAIR, and many other publications.
For background, see:
- Migration, Drugs, and Tariffs: Whether Biden or Trump, US’s Latin American Policy Will Still Be Contemptible. https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/02/03/migration-drugs-and-tariffs-whether-biden-or-trump-uss-latin-american-policy-will-still-be-contemptible/
- CAFTA treaty and Prospect of New US Sanctions Against Nicaragua. https://www.nicasolidarity.com/10222024-nica-breaks-relations-israel-statement-to-europe-conference/the-cafta-treaty-and-the-prospect-of-new-us-sanctions-against-nicaragua?rq=cafta
- Panama Tries Compromise; US Says It’s Not Enough. https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/03/panama-tries-compromise-us-says-its-not-enough/
- Development banker says US knew of plot to oust him over Nicaragua loans. https://thegrayzone.com/2025/01/22/development-banker-us-plot-nicaragua-loans/
Members of the public can view the meeting live on KTOP or on the City’s website at
https://www.oaklandca.gov/topics/ktop-tv-10.
Relevant Agenda:
4. Federal Task Force Ordinance – OPD – Annual Reports: Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA); Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); Secret Service; United States Marshall Service (USMS);
Federal Bureau of Investigation Violent Crimes – Safe Streets (FBI); Federal Bureau of Investigation
Child Exploitation (FBI)
5. Privacy Advisory Commission – Annual Election of Chair/Vice-Chair
a. Vote on nominee(s) for chair and vice-chair positions
As we suspected, the number of arrests of individuals under some form of ICE surveillance (via formal check-ins with ICE and/or through the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program/ISAP) has significantly increased since the start of the Trump Administration. CJE has connected with dozens of groups across the country about how these arrests have been carried out and have identified a few patterns that ICE appears to be following – most notably the use of ruse tactics to trick people and then arrest them. We are continuing to track these arrests so please reach out directly if you have information that would help our efforts.
We’ve updated the resource we released back in January “When ICE is Watching: Know Your Fight, Protect Your People”, which provides information to people under ICE surveillance about the risks for arrest and detention, with the information that we’ve been able to collect so far about these arrests. The resource is now available in English, Spanish, French, Wolof, Simplified Chinese, Portuguese, Hindi, Arabic, Cebuano, Farsi, and Pashto. You can find the folder with all the resources here: https://bit.ly/knowyourfight. Please continue to share it widely!
Additionally, if your organization is working with people under any kind of ICE surveillance we want to invite you to join us for a community conversation on Friday, March 7th at 9:30am PT/12:30pm ET. At this meeting, we will briefly review the resource, discuss how these arrests have been conducted, and any connections that might exist between them. We want groups to discuss what they’re witnessing and how they’re supporting community members under ICE surveillance. You must register here to participate.
If you can’t make the meeting, but want to be in touch with us, please fill out this link.
International Women’s Day Actions, March 8 2025
Find more International Women’s Day events
Click here to find a women’s march near you
Oakland:
Location: Avenida de La Fuente, Fruitvale, Oakland / Huchiun Territory
San Francisco
Date: Saturday, March 8, 2025
Time: 10am-12:30pm
Location: Union Square, 18 Geary St. San Francisco, CA, 94108
Speaker: Jack Rasmus
To Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/
Join Zoom Meeting:
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Laura Wells will open with reflections on what the words related to Women’s History Month even mean: feminist, female, woman. There are no easy answers in these times. The question is, how do we — women and all — proceed toward building the big movement that’s needed to move with strength and power toward the world we want?
Marsha Feinland will address how the history of women’s struggles for their rights at the workplace and at the ballot box is intertwined with the history of socialist movements in the United States and worldwide. This talk will cover some of the early union organizing of and by women, and how women’s activity converged and diverged with the often male-dominated general movements for workers’ rights and for socialism.
Marsha Feinland is a long time member of the Peace and Freedom Party of California. She has run for public offices from Berkeley School Board to U.S. Senate and one time for President of the United States. In 1994 she was elected to the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board, helping to replace a landlord-controlled board with one that pledged to protect tenants.
Marsha is a retired teacher and a former teachers’ union activist, receiving a Ca. Teachers’ Association WHO award in 2002 for her representation of fellow teachers at the site and for organizing district-wide teacher actions around contract negotiations. She was active in the Abortion Rights movement, and helped to defend clinics when they were threatened by “Operation Rescue.”
She is currently volunteers as a facilitator on school field trips at the Oakland Museum of California and with the Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s eco-education program.
Laura Wells has been active with the Green Party of California since the party began in 1992. Beginning in 2002 she ran as a candidate for public office, primarily state Controller, and for Governor in 2010, with the platform of public banking and “tax the rich.” She has often campaigned alongside Marsha Feinland and they worked together on the 2022 Left Unity Slate composed of candidates from both the Green Party and the Peace and Freedom Party. As an aside, they also both enjoy bird-watching and learning to Lindy Hop swing dance.
Green Sundays are a series of free public programs & discussions on topics “du jour” sponsored by the Green Party of Alameda County and held on the 2nd Sunday of each month. The monthly business meeting of the County Council of the Green Party follows at 7:00 pm, after a 30-minute break. Council meetings are open to anyone who is interested.
Meeting ID: 880 8334 2274
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+1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
Meeting ID: 880 8334 2274
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Join EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Eva Galperin, in conversation with Ron Deibert of the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, to discuss Rons latest book: Chasing Shadows: Cyber Espionage, Subversion and the Global Fight for Democracy.
This event is free and all are welcome to join!
Chasing Shadows provides a front-row seat to a dark underworld of digital espionage, dark PR, and subversion. The book provides a gripping account of how the Citizen Lab, the world’s foremost digital watchdog, has uncovered dozens of cyber espionage cases and protects people in countries around the world. Called “essential reading” by Margaret Atwood, it’s a chilling reminder of the invisible invasions happening on smartphones and computers around the world.
We encourage you to join us live for this discussion, however it will be available via livestream on zoom. Register online for access to the zoom event.
We’re inviting you to an urgent We Are California movement meeting Tuesday, March 11th at 6:30 PM to share important updates about the Trump Administration’s plan to use the federal budget to attack our communities, and share upcoming actions you can take to block these efforts.
Both the House and Senate will be working on budget proposals that would take away health care, food assistance, and child care from working families, while massively defunding our schools. If successful, these funding cuts will harm over 15 million seniors, children and families in California. They want to use these staggering cuts to give billionaires and big corporations massive tax breaks, and use them to increase funding for ICE and CBP’s attacks on immigrants. But their razor-thin legislative margins give us an opportunity to delay and defang their plans. This next month will be a critical moment to stop this urgent threat. We need to tell the House and Senate to get their Hands Off Our Healthcare!
Please join our movement meeting that will go into more detail on what’s at stake for California, both statewide and locally, and to get involved in this fight.
Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com a few days beforehand for the online invite. All are welcome!
For our March, 2025 meeting we will be reading the first four chapters of Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis (Penguin Random House, Amazon). For our April meeting, we will be finishing the book.
Capitalism is dead. Welcome to technofeudalism. The perfect Christmas gift for the political visionaries in your life.
In his boldest and most far-reaching book, the visionary economist and number-one bestselling author Yanis Varoufakis shows how the owners of big tech became the world’s feudal overlords – replacing capitalism with a fundamentally new system that enslaves our minds, defies democracy and rewrite the rules of global power.
But as Varoufakis also reveals, technofeudalism contains new opportunities to thwart and overturn it, bringing into focus more clearly than ever the revolution we need to escape our digital prison.
Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included (in chronological order) Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century, The Deficit Myth, Revenge Capitalism, the Edge of Chaos blog symposium , Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons, The Optimist’s Telescope, Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, Exploring Degrowth, The Origin of Wealth, Mine!, The Dawn of Everything A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Beyond Money, Less is More, Cannibal Capitalism, Debt, the First 5000 Years , Poverty, By America, End Times, Jackson Rising Redux , The Feminist Subversion of the Economy, How Infrastructure Works, Inside the Systems that Shape our World, Wealth Supremacy, The Persuaders, The Path to a Livable Future, Solidarity, Mutual Aid, Breaking Together
and Making Sense of Chaos.
Nicaragua and Grassroots Organization
Speaker: Sarah Woodard
To Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/
The JHC-CDCA continues to respond to local needs, seeking resources to help the poor accomplish what they see as their priorities, particularly in the areas of sustainable economic development, organic agriculture, health care, and education. The JHC-CDCA is supported by grassroots donations, making it uniquely flexible in responding to climate crises, able to adjust service ministries as needs change. This Spring, Sarah’s focus is to update supporters on the JHC-CDCA’s work in Nicaragua as well to educate those in the global north on the amazing realities developing within a southern neighbor where both the social and political will are focused on helping the majority of the population, the poorest of the poor. Sarah travels with a powerpoint presentation providing Q&A opportunities.
This film made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective shows the destruction of the occupied West Bank’s Masafer Yatta by Israeli soldiers and the alliance which develops between the Palestinian activist Basel and Israeli journalist Yuval.
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Third annual Women’s Herstory Month celebration, centering an urgent and vital conversation: “Know Your Rights: How to Deal with ICE.
1. Call to Order, determination of quorum
2. Open Forum/Public Comment on Non-Agenda matters
3. Review and approval of the draft November 20, February 6 and March 3 meeting minutes
4. Review and Possible Action on Federal Task Force Ordinance – OPD – Annual Reports: a. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) b. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) c. Secret Service d. United States Marshall Service (USMS) e. Federal Bureau of Investigation Violent Crimes – Safe Streets (FBI) f. Federal Bureau of Investigation Child Exploitation (FBI)
5. Review and Possible Action on Unmanned Aerial System (UAS or Drone) 2024 Annual Report
6. Review and Possible Action on ATF Bodyworn Cameras – MOU Addendum
7. Review and Possible Action on the Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) 2024 Annual Report
8. Review and Possible Action on Sanctuary Contracting Ordinance – Presentation of Annual Report
Members of the public can view the meeting live on KTOP or on the City’s website at https://www.oaklandca.gov/topics/ktop-tv-10. Comment in advance. To send your comment directly to the Privacy Commission and staff BEFORE the meeting starts, please send your comment, along with your full name and agenda item number you are commenting on, to Felicia Verdin at fverdin@oaklandca.gov. Please note that eComment submissions close one (1) hour before posted meeting time. All submitted public comment will be provided to the Privacy Commission prior to the meeting.
To observe and participate in the meeting via Zoom, go to: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85817209915 Or One tap mobile: 1 669 444 9171 To participate in the meeting virtually, you must log on via Zoom.
If you have a question, please raise your hand in Zoom during open forum and public comment. For those attending in person, you can complete a speaker card and submit to staff.
Weaponizing Antisemitism by Project Esther
Speaker: Seth Morrison
To Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/
Meeting ID: 851 7586 0127
Passcode: 580909
Project Esther is the Heritage Foundation’s roadmap to destroy the pro-Palestine movement in the US. This McCarthy era-like project falsely conflates anti-zionism with antisemitism and then deceptively accuses pro-Palestine activists of antisemitism.
Our speaker, Seth Morrison, is a leader in the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), an articulate advocate to peace in West Asia, and a campaigner against the criminalization of pro- Palestinian speech. He has been active in Jewish organizations throughout his life. He was formerly a leader in J Street and other Jewish organizations, before joining JVP and becoming a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activist and an anti-zionist. He is on the national board of JVP Action and a leader in the Bay Area chapter of JVP. Professionally he is retired from a career in marketing and product development in the cable television industry.
An interview with our speaker on this subject was recently published in Counterpunch: https://www.counterpunch.org/
On a related issues, he and a colleague recently published “Can Palestinians and Israelis coexist in a single democratic state? (https://www.
“Tracking and Documenting Surveillance at the U.S.-Mexico Border.”
This panel will discuss the massive increase in domestic surveillance throughout the border region. EFF’s Hannah Zhao and Saira Hussain will be joined by journalist Lauren Markham, Senior Staff Attorney at Just Futures Law Daniel Werner, and migrant justice organizer Alex Mensing as they explore digital civil liberties at the U.S.-Mexico border.
I hope you are able to participate in the Q&A that will follow the discussion. You can also reply to this message now with a question for the panelists. We encourage you to join us live for this discussion, however it will be recorded and available following the event on YouTube and the Internet Archive!
The Friday, 4/18 show is at 4:00 PM.
Students flooded Columbia University’s lawn to create the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in order to pressure their university to divest from the US and Israeli weapons companies. THE ENCAMPMENTS follows the central organizers of the encampment as they are thrust into the spotlight, face violent police repression and suspension, congressional pressure, and a media firestorm, all while fighting to attain their goal of divestment at any cost.
Also Saturday, 4/12 @ 5:10 PM, Sat 4/19 @ 12:00 Noon, Sun 4/20 at 3:15, etc.